UBS offshore services off limits to US citizens

UBS is to stop providing offshore banking services to American citizens as the latest development of its continuing involvement in the US government's $20bn (£10bn) tax-avoidance investigation into the bank's former operations. The Swiss bank, which has already closed down its US offshore banking business, went a step further and said that it would no long allow bankers from Switzerland or elsewhere in the world to travel to the US to meet clients on banking or securities matters. The bank has also agreed to work with the US government to identify American clients who may have been involved in defrauding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). That decision follows an earlier ruling by a Florida judge to give the IRS permission to serve legal papers on the bank to attempt to force it to hand over the names of up to 20,000 US clients.